Microsoft HealthVault

Microsoft HealthVault is a web-based platform from Microsoft to store and maintain health and fitness information.[1][2][3][4] This Personal health record system started in October 2007, the website addresses both individuals and healthcare professionals. In June 2010, Microsoft HealthVault expanded its services to include the United Kingdom.[5]

Contents

A HealthVault record stores an individual's health information. Access to a record is through a HealthVault account, which may be authorized to access records for multiple individuals, so that a mother may manage records for each of her children or a son may have access to his father's record to help the father deal with medical issues. Authorization of the account can be through Windows Live ID, Facebook or a limited set of OpenID providers.

An individual interacts with their HealthVault record through the HealthVault site, or, more typically, through an application that talks to the HealthVault platform. When an individual first uses a HealthVault application, they are asked to authorize the application to access a specific set of data types, and those data types are the only ones the application can use. An individual can also share a part (some data types) or the whole of their health record with another interested individual such as a doctor, a spouse, a parent, etc.

HealthVault Connection Center allows health and fitness data to be transferred from devices (such as heart rate watches, blood pressure monitors and the Withings wifi bodyscale[6]) into an individual's HealthVault record. It can also be used to find and download drivers for medical devices.[7][8]

HealthVault supports storage of DICOM based medical imaging. Consumers can upload and download medical imaging DVD through HealthVault connection center. Third parties can also upload and download medical imaging to/from HealthVault, for example Candelis. In addition, there has been plethora of HealthVault medical imaging viewers released by the third party to connect to HealthVault even on mobile phones.

HealthVault's primary competitors are Dossia and World Medical Card and Apple's Health Kit and Health plus a few others. Google announced[10] in June 2011 that Google Health would be discontinued as of January 1, 2012, and encouraged users to either download their data or to directly transfer it to Microsoft's HealthVault service before January 1, 2013.